Regrets

Regrets are the worst. They come from a place of self blame which is a terrible feeling for survivors of sexual assault. It is incredibly common for victims to feel shame and guilt over what has happened to them. We, as a society, tell them they should. We tell them not to dress provocatively or drink too much or in general just to be more careful. I am going to have to dedicate another post to victim blaming, because this post is about self blame. This post is going to be the most difficult for me to write. This post is going to be about what I didn't do, and how I feel that I allowed this to happen to me....It's also going to be about all the things I constantly remind myself of to try not to feel that way.

For me, it all started when I was so young that it was easy for Zac to mold and shape my psyche for easy access. He used to beat me up a lot. I was six years his junior so no one paid too much attention to him getting rid of his annoying kid cousin. One of my uncles told me he explained to Zac that he had to be more careful with me because I was a girl and one of my aunts said that I didn’t know about all the times she fought with Zac’s mother, or Grannie did, for the way Zac bullied me, and they left sooner than planned….but that’s the problem. I didn’t know. All these reprimands were behind the scenes. They never told me they sent him away. They never told me that they were on my side. All I heard was “Kids!” and “Just stay away from him.” So of course I felt that I was part of the problem to them. I thought “Well excuse me for walking through the living room, I guess it’s my fault he jumped me to give me a huge wedgie and throw me over the couch (not onto the front with the cushions, but over the back onto the floor).” I trusted them less every time I said something and got nothing but annoyance in return from them. They never stopped to make it clear that the annoyance was at him, not me. The worst was when he threw me down the stairs and my aunt told me I needed to stay away from him and stop bugging him. All my other cousins, the only other kids there, were playing with him, but I should just go be by myself so he isn’t tempted to throw me down the stairs. I think that was the last time I told on him to any of them until I was 18 and told them everyting.

Zac started molesting me slowly. He told someone later that he understood you had to do this to women…you had to train them to be comfortable with your touch like animals. He knew what he was doing. He started off by being nice to me instead of beating me up. He invited me to come with him to go put firecrackers down groundhogs holes. I was raised on a farm where groundhogs are considered a nuisance, and I knew a firecracker wasn’t likely to kill one, so I didn’t worry too much about the animals. I was just over-joyed that he invited me. It had always torn me up inside that he hated me for no reason. The prospect of that ending was extremely exciting to me. My mother was hesitant to let me go because of Zac’s violent nature, but I begged and she couldn’t resist my pleas so off we went into the woods.

It wasn’t very exciting, but it was a nice walk and I was having fun. We decided to rest on a log for a minute and he started talking about butts. Butts were a silly subject and fun to talk about for an elementary student. He started talking about all the different kinds of butts; big butts, flat buts, jiggly butts….he told me to stand up and I did. He said, “Flex your butt”, and I did. He patted it and said, “that’s a nice tight butt.” I beamed at the compliment. My pride in my butt at that moment is a huge source of shame for me. It wasn’t then though…then it was just pride and joy and a feeling of hope like Zac might actually like me after all.

The next time I saw Zac, I greeted him with a huge hug. He left his arm around me, draped over my shoulder and cupping my budding breast while he talked to another of my cousins. No one acted like this was weird and I didn’t want him to stop liking me and go back to beating me up so I decided it wasn’t weird too. He did it again while I was reading out loud to a cousin and again, no one said anything so again, I decided it must not be a big deal. There were many other times when I was in elementary school that things like this happened and eventually I didn’t have to decide anything, it was just how things were between him and me...and at least he wasn't beating me up.

In high school there was this boy who seemed to like me. He told me he liked me and invited me to his church and then suddenly lost interest and decided to chase another girl right before the big school dance. I was embarrassed and hurt and wanted to be impressive, but I was in a new school in a new town and barely knew anyone. I made the biggest mistake of my life. I invited Zac to take me to the dance. Zac was good looking for being one of the soulless, and charm radiated off him as it often does from abusive assholes. In the movies, that sort of plan would have made the other guy jealous and realize what he lost while doing no damage to me, but life isn’t the movies.

Zac wanted to know what I wanted him to do and I said I wanted him to meet the guy, shake his hand (maybe a little extra hard), be charming, and make me look like I don’t need high school boys. He asked if we would dance and I said “well it’s a dance so yeah”. He asked if he should put his arm around me which seemed harmless enough so I said ok. Then he said, to really get this guy jealous, he might have to kiss me. In my head, a little kiss to drive this jerk crazy was a price I could pay. I said, “I guess that would be ok” and it was like Christmas for Zac. He showered me with “You are so cool, this is going to be so fun, you are going to feel so much better when we put this guy in his place.”

The night of the dance Zac told me he couldn’t come because his girlfriend wouldn’t let him. I thought that was the end of it. It was a silly scheme anyway. He was a butthead for canceling the day of, but it wasn’t his fault, and I had cooled down a lot and wasn’t so determined to focus on the jerk who snubbed me. I had a good time with my friends at the dance and had completely forgotten about my conversation with Zac. He didn’t forget though…he had found his way in and wasn’t going to waste it.

The next time I saw Zac he got me alone and kissed me. I was shocked and asked what he was doing, to which he replied, “you said it was ok.” Dumbfounded, I stood still shocked as he kissed me again and started to feel my body. He kept telling me how cool I was and I kept trying to figure out how to get out of this. He was right, I had told him it was ok so this was my fault and I was terrified of him hating me again. I never forgot all the beatings and in that moment, I was that five year old girl again, scared to death of what would happen if I “bugged Zac”. Before I knew what was happening he pushed me onto my knees and shoved his penis in my mouth. He held my head tightly and moved it back and forth. I closed my eyes waiting for him to let me go. When he didn’t, I finally struggled and managed to pull away. He finished himself off as I tried to collect myself. I told him I didn’t want to do that anymore. I blamed it on a previous bad experience with someone else so as to not upset him and incur his wrath.

He started calling me all the time. I asked him to stop, but he wouldn’t. I’d hang up and he would call back with his number blocked. I turned off my cell phone and he would call the house phone so my mother would make me talk to him. I told her I didn’t want to and she told me to tell him that so he would stop calling. I tried, but he didn’t listen. He said he would just keep calling until I had phone sex with him. I made some fake noises until he was satisfied and then the calls would stop for that day....sometimes for a week or two.

One time he showed up at my work shortly before I was scheduled to leave. He told me he wanted to talk. He gave me some wine coolers in his car as a peace offering, but said I had to drink them there so my parents wouldn’t find out. I drank one to be polite. It was ingrained in me not to upset Zac. I keep repeating that because I am trying to convince myself that it is a valid excuse for not fighting him off and telling the world. I had already told one person whose response was to ask me to give him head too, and then my boyfriend who had broken up with me on the spot….plus all the times my family made me feel like his aggression towards me was somehow my fault…all those things made me afraid to tell, but I still hate myself for not telling and not fighting. I blame myself and that is why I fight so hard to convince people it wasn’t my fault. I am trying to convince myself. He did things to my body after I finished my drink and I kept saying I had to get home or my parents would worry…finally, when he was done, he let me go.

I found a new defense mechanism to protect my tattered psyche. My defense was to not care about sex. To this day, I cannot connect love and sex, they are always separate. Friends would say I was like a guy or Samantha from Sex in the City. People who weren’t my friends would say I was a slut. In order to make sex meaningless I went to great lengths. I had sex with many people I didn’t care about…pretty much anyone who asked. During sex I would just “go away”. I would detach and be elsewhere while they did what they wanted to my body. It was warped and it warped me. I can engage in sex now, and enjoy it, but it is still separate from the feelings in my heart.

I stopped hanging up on Zac and just made fake noises whenever he called to get rid of him. If I did that often enough he was less likely to randomly show up. I did everything I could think of to dissuade him in person without upsetting him. I told him I didn’t want to cheat on my new boyfriend, or that I was on my period, but nothing convinced him to stop. I told my friend Sara about it and told her I didn’t care. I told her it was “whatever”. She believed me. I believed it myself so I can’t blame her for that…but what happened because of that…I do blame her for…very much so.